Title: Mad Science
Character Name: Kaari
Okay, so, to provide accountability and transparency, I will try to list the science experiments Kaari is up to that I've been going over with Mindgate.
1) Texas's Arm. Texas asked Kaari if she could use her monster knowledge to get his lost arm back. Kaari essentially shrugged and said she'd give it a shot. Her approach has been three-fold:
a) Her first experiments were to take his old bones (of course she kept them from the amputation) and implant foreign cells that would regrow into muscle, tendon, and tissue over the bone lattice. Her results so far have been malformed or missing pieces, likely from the degradation of the bones. Her second attempts will use behemoth bone cells to repair the degradation, since behemoth bone cells regenerate even after the death of the host.
b) Her second series of experiments were to try to grow a new arm from scratch, using blood samples from Texas for a DNA marker instead of the bone samples of her previous experiments combined with active monster cells. Mostly, the results she is getting from these experiments are just horrible abominations in a jar. Not exactly promising.
c) Her third series of experiments were to try to convince a subject to regrow a lost limb. For this, she caught a bunch of rats and amputated their tails or limbs. She then implanted monster cells in various compositions and concentrations. Her results so far were also pretty grotesque. Rats either died, or mutated, or mutated and died, or died and mutated. She even got a ROUS out of it. One rat however did show signs of regrowing its tail without the negative effects, so she is focusing on that composition and is toying with different concentrations of cells.
The science behind this is ... y'know what, I'm just gonna copy and paste from discord:
kaari would try to harvest monocytes from the spleen of a monster that could be matured into macrophages to be used to create an extracellular matrix to hold the cytokines for muscle and tissue growth .... what shes looking for in particular are macrophages that develop into blastema cells, but for any apical epidermal cap to grow it would need to be nerve-induced, meaning she also needs peripheral nerves to provide a transcription factor which essentially lets the blastema, which is morphologically homogenous, to differentiate into subpopulations of dermal fibroblasts based on positional identity using retinoic acid ... now, mammals already can regenerate muscle tissue from satellite cells but those use neural stem cells from a pre-existing pool of progenitor cells so we already have the muscle covered, we just need the monster cells to contain blastema-forming stem/progenitor cells and we need the nerves to be able to activate said cells simplified, if monsters have regenerative properties similar to developing embryos or salamanders, she would be able to harvest the particular stem cells that are used for that regeneration .. where it gets iffy is the ability to tell those cells what they need to turn into, which is a function that is likely covered by the nervous system ... she can try to use samples of texas's nerve cells for this, she can try monster nerve cells, she can try a combination of the two, or she can try to mimic the nerve response using chemicals the hope here is that monster cells are more willing to allow for cross-cellular contamination using the oculorubrus virus as a bridge .... usually, there is a pretty wide divide between cells of different species, but since the oculorubrus crosses species barriers and modifies the cells it infects, then it may allow very different cellular structures to work together when they would not normally be able to
So what Kaari's doing does have enough science behind it for any results to be well within the realms of science fiction, science fantasy, or pseudoscience. I have no idea what the end result will be, though I know Mindgate discussed possibilities with Texas's player. All I know is what Kaari knows, and she's just throwing science at the wall to see what sticks.
2) The Fog. There are clouds of hazardous fog in the world in at least two varieties, red and green. Kaari obtained samples of this fog from the doctor in Saratoga Springs. She has been looking to identify the chemical composition of the fog, and its mechanisms of action. So far, she has discovered that the 'fog' is actually plant spores that have been infected by an unidentified strain of the Oculorubrus virus, and :
a) Green Fog. It is highly caustic to uninfected tissue, but can be used as a source of energy for infected tissue. That means she could make an acid smoke bomb out of it, but instead she is synthesizing a 'monster treat' for infected such as her snakes or Runty that should have some sort of positive benefit.
b) Red Fog. It is highly mutagenic, increasing the rate at which cells work (synthesizing proteins, converting nutrients, etc) and replicate. The mechanism behind this is still unknown, but Kaari could potentially develop an injection-based combat drug which would work to amplify the user's abilities, potentially at the cost of increased infection. She's still working on it, but given that the fog doesn't follow our conventional understanding of chemistry, it's slow going because Kaari won't be finding any textbooks on the subject.
3) The Marks. Kaari has been studying the effect of the 'marks' on cells ever since she obtained a lab. She has thus far been able to determine that the Mark coincides with increased concentrations of Oculorubrus-infected cells within the blood, that this is not a static limit but that the concentration increases based upon outside factors, and that there are different strains of Oculorubrus potentially coinciding with the different types of monsters inhabiting the world. She has developed blood tests to determine the concentration of Oculorubrus cells within the Monroe inhabitants and has determined that Terry, Alfred, Alexis, and Harlan have elevated amounts to what she considers to be an initial 'stage' of being Marked. Anthony, Rosita, and Coleman have evidence of an elevated cell count, but only in marginal quantities. Kaari herself has a high concentration, to what she determines as a mid 'stage' of being Marked. What she is still trying to determine is how to identify the specific strain of Oculorubrus, and how to affect the progression through either reversing, inhibiting, or modifying the infection. To this end, she is experimenting on the strains she has available; dogman, trullan, behemoth, leech, rothorse, and the man in red. Her one in-road with inhibiting the progression comes from the Crow recipe for Cyanophage, an elixir that uses a self-perpetuating chemical reaction of proteins in dogman saliva and ocean-based bacteria to block the Oculorubrus by providing it a temporarily unlimited amount of cells to harmlessly infect and thereby preventing it from targeting human cells. Her work with modifying the infection comes from evidence gathered from E'rami and Uhu'ri, in which baseline or TMIR-strain Oculorubrus virus was overwritten by an opposing strain. Kaari is attempting to study how she can artificially trigger this reaction, perhaps by using samples of red fog, to overwrite an unfavorable strain with a more favorable strain or perhaps to find an equilibrium where various strains of Oculorubrus compete for supremacy but are unable get a foothold.
4) Medication. Kaari has been developing medications in her lab. I only went into heavy detail on the first few antibiotics and analgesics, but I can provide some exhaustive research on just how to make benzos in a bathtub if you would really like. The results are listed in a channel on the Discord, where Kaari's actual medication effectiveness is based on rolls given how she's accomplishing this all with textbooks and scraps.
That's all the science she's working on off the top of my head. If I can think of any more, I'll add it to this list. I'll also add any updates that Mindgate provides.
Character Name: Kaari
Okay, so, to provide accountability and transparency, I will try to list the science experiments Kaari is up to that I've been going over with Mindgate.
1) Texas's Arm. Texas asked Kaari if she could use her monster knowledge to get his lost arm back. Kaari essentially shrugged and said she'd give it a shot. Her approach has been three-fold:
a) Her first experiments were to take his old bones (of course she kept them from the amputation) and implant foreign cells that would regrow into muscle, tendon, and tissue over the bone lattice. Her results so far have been malformed or missing pieces, likely from the degradation of the bones. Her second attempts will use behemoth bone cells to repair the degradation, since behemoth bone cells regenerate even after the death of the host.
b) Her second series of experiments were to try to grow a new arm from scratch, using blood samples from Texas for a DNA marker instead of the bone samples of her previous experiments combined with active monster cells. Mostly, the results she is getting from these experiments are just horrible abominations in a jar. Not exactly promising.
c) Her third series of experiments were to try to convince a subject to regrow a lost limb. For this, she caught a bunch of rats and amputated their tails or limbs. She then implanted monster cells in various compositions and concentrations. Her results so far were also pretty grotesque. Rats either died, or mutated, or mutated and died, or died and mutated. She even got a ROUS out of it. One rat however did show signs of regrowing its tail without the negative effects, so she is focusing on that composition and is toying with different concentrations of cells.
The science behind this is ... y'know what, I'm just gonna copy and paste from discord:
kaari would try to harvest monocytes from the spleen of a monster that could be matured into macrophages to be used to create an extracellular matrix to hold the cytokines for muscle and tissue growth .... what shes looking for in particular are macrophages that develop into blastema cells, but for any apical epidermal cap to grow it would need to be nerve-induced, meaning she also needs peripheral nerves to provide a transcription factor which essentially lets the blastema, which is morphologically homogenous, to differentiate into subpopulations of dermal fibroblasts based on positional identity using retinoic acid ... now, mammals already can regenerate muscle tissue from satellite cells but those use neural stem cells from a pre-existing pool of progenitor cells so we already have the muscle covered, we just need the monster cells to contain blastema-forming stem/progenitor cells and we need the nerves to be able to activate said cells simplified, if monsters have regenerative properties similar to developing embryos or salamanders, she would be able to harvest the particular stem cells that are used for that regeneration .. where it gets iffy is the ability to tell those cells what they need to turn into, which is a function that is likely covered by the nervous system ... she can try to use samples of texas's nerve cells for this, she can try monster nerve cells, she can try a combination of the two, or she can try to mimic the nerve response using chemicals the hope here is that monster cells are more willing to allow for cross-cellular contamination using the oculorubrus virus as a bridge .... usually, there is a pretty wide divide between cells of different species, but since the oculorubrus crosses species barriers and modifies the cells it infects, then it may allow very different cellular structures to work together when they would not normally be able to
So what Kaari's doing does have enough science behind it for any results to be well within the realms of science fiction, science fantasy, or pseudoscience. I have no idea what the end result will be, though I know Mindgate discussed possibilities with Texas's player. All I know is what Kaari knows, and she's just throwing science at the wall to see what sticks.
2) The Fog. There are clouds of hazardous fog in the world in at least two varieties, red and green. Kaari obtained samples of this fog from the doctor in Saratoga Springs. She has been looking to identify the chemical composition of the fog, and its mechanisms of action. So far, she has discovered that the 'fog' is actually plant spores that have been infected by an unidentified strain of the Oculorubrus virus, and :
a) Green Fog. It is highly caustic to uninfected tissue, but can be used as a source of energy for infected tissue. That means she could make an acid smoke bomb out of it, but instead she is synthesizing a 'monster treat' for infected such as her snakes or Runty that should have some sort of positive benefit.
b) Red Fog. It is highly mutagenic, increasing the rate at which cells work (synthesizing proteins, converting nutrients, etc) and replicate. The mechanism behind this is still unknown, but Kaari could potentially develop an injection-based combat drug which would work to amplify the user's abilities, potentially at the cost of increased infection. She's still working on it, but given that the fog doesn't follow our conventional understanding of chemistry, it's slow going because Kaari won't be finding any textbooks on the subject.
3) The Marks. Kaari has been studying the effect of the 'marks' on cells ever since she obtained a lab. She has thus far been able to determine that the Mark coincides with increased concentrations of Oculorubrus-infected cells within the blood, that this is not a static limit but that the concentration increases based upon outside factors, and that there are different strains of Oculorubrus potentially coinciding with the different types of monsters inhabiting the world. She has developed blood tests to determine the concentration of Oculorubrus cells within the Monroe inhabitants and has determined that Terry, Alfred, Alexis, and Harlan have elevated amounts to what she considers to be an initial 'stage' of being Marked. Anthony, Rosita, and Coleman have evidence of an elevated cell count, but only in marginal quantities. Kaari herself has a high concentration, to what she determines as a mid 'stage' of being Marked. What she is still trying to determine is how to identify the specific strain of Oculorubrus, and how to affect the progression through either reversing, inhibiting, or modifying the infection. To this end, she is experimenting on the strains she has available; dogman, trullan, behemoth, leech, rothorse, and the man in red. Her one in-road with inhibiting the progression comes from the Crow recipe for Cyanophage, an elixir that uses a self-perpetuating chemical reaction of proteins in dogman saliva and ocean-based bacteria to block the Oculorubrus by providing it a temporarily unlimited amount of cells to harmlessly infect and thereby preventing it from targeting human cells. Her work with modifying the infection comes from evidence gathered from E'rami and Uhu'ri, in which baseline or TMIR-strain Oculorubrus virus was overwritten by an opposing strain. Kaari is attempting to study how she can artificially trigger this reaction, perhaps by using samples of red fog, to overwrite an unfavorable strain with a more favorable strain or perhaps to find an equilibrium where various strains of Oculorubrus compete for supremacy but are unable get a foothold.
4) Medication. Kaari has been developing medications in her lab. I only went into heavy detail on the first few antibiotics and analgesics, but I can provide some exhaustive research on just how to make benzos in a bathtub if you would really like. The results are listed in a channel on the Discord, where Kaari's actual medication effectiveness is based on rolls given how she's accomplishing this all with textbooks and scraps.
That's all the science she's working on off the top of my head. If I can think of any more, I'll add it to this list. I'll also add any updates that Mindgate provides.
